2026-10-14
At the 10th edition of Finweek Bratislava, EDFA Chair Alessandra Guion joined the CEE Fintech Forum for a panel on how Central and Eastern European fintechs can scale across borders. The session, organised by the Fintech & Insurtech Association of Slovakia (FINAS), brought together views from Slovakia, Austria, Czechia, Poland, Hungary and the EU level.
Ivan Štefanec opened with a strong case for supporting SMEs and entrepreneurs, competitiveness and sovereignty. Alessandra was joined on the panel by Martin Peter (Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic), Simona Michalíková (CzechInvest), Birgit Reiter-Braunwieser (ABA – Invest in Austria), and EDFA members Paweł Bułgaryn (FinTech Poland) and Zoltán Ács (Hungarian Fintech Association).
The passport and practice
Alessandra’s starting point: 450 million Europeans, one market on paper, but 27 in practice. The European passport works for the licence, much less for the business. The real obstacle is that the same directive receives 27 different readings, and national reflexes, while natural, are counterproductive.
Consistency, not fewer rules
Strict rules are not the problem; inconsistency and unpredictability are. Harmonisation is needed both in the rules themselves and in how they are applied, a point the Austrian and Polish perspectives on the panel approached from complementary angles.
Trust through dialogue
This is why EDFA runs Bridging Borders with national supervisors. Some solutions already exist: the Czech National Bank set clear expectations for usable PSD2 interfaces, and ten of the eleven banks concerned improved. The National Bank of Romania now monitors these interfaces in real time.
One quick fix
Alessandra’s proposal for the next 12 months: a single EU list of complaint contact points, with a case number and a response time in each country. Today only 10 of 30 EEA countries offer a usable channel, and only four publish a response time. It requires no new legislation, little effort, and would have real impact. She also reiterated EDFA’s support for EU Inc.
EDFA thanks Davy Cajko and FINAS for the invitation and the organisation of the event.